Saturday, August 15, 2015

FLASH UPDATE: THE “ PULLING NO PUNCHES WITH AN ‘OLD FRIEND’ ” EDITION

SATURDAY'S TOP HEADLINE FOR NEWSMAX — DICK MORRIS SAYS HILLARY CLINTON WILL BE INDICTED OVER E-MAILS AND HER HANDLING OF CLASSIFIED MATERIAL

"WHEN THEY GO THROUGH ALL 30,000 [E-MAILS], THE EVIDENCE IS GOING TO BE SO OVERWHELMING THAT I BELIEVE SHE WILL BE INDICTED....”

— FORMER CLINTON ADVISER, DICK MORRIS

DONALD TRUMP SAYS HILLARY’S PRIVATE E-MAIL SCHEME WAS TO KEEP THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION FROM SEEING WHAT SHE WAS UP TO

Saturday morning’s top story in Newsmax starts off like this: “Political analyst Dick Morris is convinced Hillary Clinton's email scandal will lead to her being indicted and forced out of the race for president.... During an interview with Newsmax TV's ‘Newsmax Now,’ Morris tells host Miranda Khan Clinton's actions — using a private email address and server during her time as Secretary of State, which presumably allowed classified material to be passed over the non-government server — will lead to ‘overwhelming’ evidence that she broke the law.... (See “Dick Morris: Hillary Will Be Indicted” by By Jason Devaney, 8/14/15, Newsmax [http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/dick-morris-hillary-clinton-indicted-drop/2015/08/]).

For Dick Morris the bottom line is that all of this is OVERWHELMING — ".... ‘The magnitude of the evidence is going to be so overwhelming that it’ll be impossible not to indict her,’ Morris says. ‘So yes, I do believe Hillary Clinton will be indicted and will be forced out of this race.’..."

EVEN TRUMP HAD SOMETHING INTERESTING TO SAY ABOUT HILLARY'S E-MAILS

>>>> Elsewhere in the same Newsmax article, Donald Trump was quoted as saying Hillary’s private E-mail system was to keep the Obama Administration from knowing what she was doing.

Here's how the Donald put it:".... I think Hillary has got huge problems right now.... Is she going to make it? I hear this thing is big league. Why did she do it? You use the server? Because [the Clintons are] always looking to go over the edge, whether it's Whitewater or anything else. They always want to go over the edge.... I'm just looking at it saying, 'What the hell was she doing? You know what she was doing? She was guarding from the president seeing what she was doing."

6 comments:

FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH – SOMEBODY CHALLENGED ME TO ADDRESS THIS FOR SOME REASON – SINCE THE UNDERLYING NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE IS WORTHY OF COMMENT, I FIGURED – WHY NOT ?

THE NY TIMES ACTUALLY DID A WHOLE ARTICLE — WHICH, FOR THE MOST PART, WAS NOT VERY GOOD FOR HILLARY CLINTON AND HER HOPES TO BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Last evening I saw this item from the impersonator Twitter site, “ @RealGM4Hillary [Yes, ykw tweaked its name for some reason] Galewyn Massey for Hillary Clinton ” — “... If you actually care about the truth [description of Galewyn Massey, then] you will read para. five: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/15/us/fbi-tracking-path-of-email-to-hillary-clinton-at-state-department.html.... ”

Well, here is “... para. five” from the cite given by my impersonator – “.... Law enforcement officials have said that Mrs. Clinton, who is seeking the 2016 Democratic nomination for president, is not a target of the investigation, and she has said there is no evidence that her account was hacked. There has also been no evidence that she broke the law, and many specialists believe the occasional appearance of classified information in her account was probably of marginal consequence....” ( See “F.B.I. Tracking Path of Classified Email From State Dept. to Hillary Clinton” by Michael S. Schmidt & David E. Sangeraug, 8/14/15 [appearing in NY Times print editions on 8/15/15], NY Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/15/us/fbi-tracking-path-of-email-to-hillary-clinton-at-state-department.html?_r=0]).

To the uninformed, what’s contained in “... para. five” is called a “DISCLAIMER” — it’s sort of like the warnings normally found on packs of cigarettes, on any kind of ladder; oh, and what’s on that tag on your pillow, which you might have torn-off and thrown away.

The real meat and potatoes of the Schmidt-Sangeraug-NY Time article is what came before that “DISCLAIMER” — “ F.B.I. agents investigating Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email server are seeking to determine who at the State Department passed highly classified information from secure networks to Mrs. Clinton’s personal account, according to law enforcement and diplomatic officials and others briefed on the investigation.... To track how the information flowed, agents will try to gain access to the email accounts of many State Department officials who worked there while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the officials said. State Department employees apparently circulated the emails on unclassified systems in 2009 and 2011, and some were ultimately forwarded to Mrs. Clinton.... They were not marked as classified, the State Department has said, and it is unclear whether its employees knew the origin of the information.... The F.B.I. is also trying to determine whether foreign powers, especially China or Russia, gained access to Mrs. Clinton’s private server, although at this point, any security breaches are speculation....”

The rest of the article is catalogue of facts and events, and an analysis of issues that have caused the F.B.I. and the DOJ to become involved in an investigation of Hillary Clinton’s E-mails, various pieces of computer hardware that were or became part of her E-mail system, and the classified information that turned up as part of the E-mails.

SO, SOME OF YOU MIGHT ASK — WHY/HOW DOES THIS “... PARA. FIVE” “DISCLAIMER” “POINT THE WAY” — AND TO WHAT DOES IT POINT ???

The answer to that is simple — what is contained in “...para. five”in the cited material is obviously straight from the Hillary Clinton team’s legal and p.r. folks, and it was force down the throats of the Timesmen that wrote this article. As such, it’s likely to be the strongest line of defense that HRC is likely to come up with against the charges that are going to come her way. Or to put it another way, it’s the best – perhaps the only – thing that the Hillary folks can come up with now — to explain away all of the E-mail problems that Hillary seems to be having with Republicans in Congress, Republicans running for President, the right-wing media, most of the mainstream media, the U.S. Intelligence Community, a pair of U.S. governmental Inspectors General, the F.B.I. and the DOJ.

CHRIS CILLIZZA SAYS: “[HILLARY CLINTON] EITHER DID WHAT SHE SAID OR SHE DIDN’T.” — “WHETHER OR NOT SHE TURNED OVER ALL WORK RELATED E-MAILS, SHE DELETED MORE THAT 31,000 E-MAILS...” — “.... TRYING TO CAST THE STORY AS NOTHING MORE THAN THE SAME OLD PARTISAN WARFARE MISSES THE FACTUAL MARK. BY A LOT”

ALSO WITH THIS COLUMN, CILLIZZA RE-RAISES THE ISSUE OF THE THIRTY-ONE THOUSAND (31,000) E-MAILS THAT HILLARY DELETED BECAUSE THEY WERE “PURELY PERSONAL” — AND HE SAYS THE FACT OF THOSE DELETIONS “... HAD ALMOST NOTHING TO DO WITH THE HOUSE REPUBLICANS [ON THE] BENGHAZI COMMITTEE....”

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza offers this very simple analysis of Hillary Clinton’s current E-mail problems in his Sunday column in the paper: “.... [S]ure the roots of the e-mail story are partisan -- at least in part. But, to quote Clinton herself: "What difference, at this point, does it make?" As in, no matter how the fact that she exclusively used a private e-mail address and server -- the first Secretary of State to do -- came to light, its existence and what she has said about it are now public knowledge and not particularly partisan.... Remember that Clinton turned over the server -- and a thumbnail drive that her lawyer, David Kendall, had been in possession of -- this week at the behest of the FBI and Justice Department. Neither of those entities are Republican partisans....” (See “Hillary Clinton is trying to make the e-mail controversy political. But, really, it isn’t.” by Chris Cillizza, 8/15/15, Washington Post/ The Fix [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/08/15/hillary-clinton-is-trying-to-make-the-e-mail-controversy-political-but-really-it-isnt/]).

Cillizza drives his point home with this: “Whether or not Clinton sent or received any classified information over the server -- she has said she hasn't although the intelligence community's inspector general appears to have found two top secret e-mails -- isn't a partisan issue. She either did what she said or she didn't. Whether or not she turned over all work-related e-mails -- she deleted more than 31,000 e-mails she described as purely personal and turned over 30,000 to the State Department -- has almost nothing to do with House Republicans Benghazi Committee....”

And the Wa-Po columnist concluded his piece with the following: “But, remember: Simply because something came to light due to a bit of partisanship doesn't mean it is forever tainted with that stain. Without an aggressive push by Republicans, we might have never known about Clinton's e-mail server. True. But now that we do know, trying to cast the story as nothing more than the same old partisan warfare misses the factual mark. By a lot.”

REPORT SAYS HILLARY CLINTON IS NO LONGER CERTAIN OF BEING THE DEMOCRAT’S NOMINEE — AND — CLINTON LOST CONTROL OF THE STORY ONCE THE FBI CAME INTO IT

The coverage in Al Jazeera starts with this narrative: “It was supposed to be so much easier for Hillary Clinton.... She had years to prepare for her moment. She had the team in place, the money raised and the vast network of supporters that is the back bone of team Clinton. They’ve run for president a combined three times, so they know what they are doing.... But her falling poll numbers are now inviting serious competitors to think about jumping into the race for the Democratic nomination. So what happened? Simply, it’s the tale of two phones....” (See “Hillary Clinton and the tale of two phones” by Patty Culhane, 8/15/15, ALJAZEERA [http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/americas/2015/08/hillary-clinton-emails-150815024520630.html]).

The article by White House correspondent, Patty Culhane, continues with this: “.... When she was secretary of state, Clinton says she simply didn’t want to carry two phones. She chose to use a private server stored in her New York home instead of the official government email.... That is highly unusual. The reason it usually isn’t done is pretty simple: the general practice is that all government records are kept by the government.... That way, if a Congressional Committee or a journalist wants to look into what their officials are doing, they can request and sometimes get the records. In later years, they will be used by historians....”

After a pretty good rundown of the issues involved in the HRC E-mail controversy, from over 30,000 deleted E-mails, to “top secret” material on/in Hillary’s E-mails, to the FBI involvement in the whole thing, Ms. Culhane concludes her article for Al Jazeera with this: “You would be hard-pressed to find anyone in Washington that would have said Hillary Clinton wasn’t going to be the nominee for the Democratic Party months ago. That is no longer the case.... I’ve spoken to pundits who say that she still has time to recover. The election is, after all, very far away. She has time, but it isn’t unlimited and now that the FBI is involved, she can no longer control how soon the story goes away.... If we take Hillary at her word, all of this controversy was because she didn’t want the inconvenience of carrying two phones. In retrospect, she says that was a mistake. The question now is how much that mistake will cost her.”

UPDATE: THE “HILLARY CLINTON’S CREDIBILITY SHRINKS AS TOTAL OF ‘CLASSIFIED’ E-MAILS GROWS” EDITION

THE WASHINGTON TIMES REPORTS: THE INTERIM TOTAL OF HILLARY CLINTON E-MAILS CONTAINING “CLASSIFIED” INFORMATION HAS REACHED SIXTY (60) THROUGHT THE END OF JULY — ACCORDING TO A STATE DEPARTMENT SOURCE — WITH THE REVIEW OF CLINTON’S E-MAILS CONTINUING

PREDICTIONS CONTAINED IN THE NOTIFICATION INSPECTOR GENERAL SENT TO CONGRESS EXPECTED TO “HOLD TRUE” — FORMER SECRETARY CLINTON’S E-MAILS LIKELY CONTAIN HUNDREDS OF DISCLOSURES OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

According to a report in the Washington Times, “While media coverage has focused on a half-dozen of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personal emails containing sensitive intelligence, the total number of her private emails identified by an ongoing State Department review as having contained classified data has ballooned to 60, officials told The Washington Times.... That figure is current through the end of July and is likely to grow as officials wade through a total of 30,000 work-related emails that passed through her personal email server, officials said. The process is expected to take months.... Among the first 60 flagged emails, nearly all contained classified secrets at the lowest level of “confidential” and one contained information at the intermediate level of “secret,” officials told the Times.” (See “Number of Hillary Clinton’s emails flagged for classified data grows to 60 as review continues” by John Solomon, 8/16/15, The Washington Times [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/16/number-of-hillary-clintons-emails-flagged-for-clas/]).

The Washington Times article also noted that “.... Those 60 emails do not include two emails identified in recent days by Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III as containing “top-secret” information possibly derived from Pentagon satellites, drones or intercepts, which is some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets.... [Department of] State officials and the intelligence community are working to resolve questions about those and other emails with possible classified information, a process that isn’t likely to be completed until January....” And in conclusion, it pointed out that “.... As the number of suspect emails grows and the classification review continues, it is clear that predictions contained in a notification Mr. McCullough sent Congress this summer is likely to hold true: Mrs. Clinton’s personal emails likely contained hundreds of disclosures of classified information.”

13,000 CONTRACTORS WERE QUALIFIED TO HANDLE “CLASSIFIED” DATA, BUT NOT THE ONE SELECTED BY HILLARY CLINTON — WHY WAS PLATTE RIVER PICKED BY THE CLINTON TEAM ? ? ?

In addition to mentioning the additional sixty (60) E-mails containing “classified” information in the ongoing search of HRC’s E-mails, The Businees Insider reports that: in 2013, after she left the State Department, Hillary Clinton hired the Denver-based company Platte River Networks to oversee the E-mail system that she had employed as Secretary of State; however, Platte River Networks "is not cleared" to have access to classified material according to Cindy McGovern, chief public affairs officer for the Defense Security Service ( See “Report: Authorities are finding more classified info in Hillary Clinton's emails ...” by Natasha Bertrand, 8/17/15, The Business Insider [http://www.businessinsider.com/report-authorities-are-finding-more-classified-info-in-hillary-clintons-emails-2015-8]). According to that report, it's still unclear whether any “classified” or other sensitive information was stored on HRC’s server while it was under Platte River's oversight.

The initial report about Platte River Network’s lacking proper clearance to handle “classified” data came from an article from the Daily Caller News Foundation ( See “Exclusive: Hillary’s IT Contractor Did Not Have Proper Security Clearance” by Richard Pollock, 8/14/15, Daily Caller [http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/14/exclusive-hillarys-it-contractor-did-not-have-proper-security-clearance/]). Here’s some of what the article in Daily Caller said, “Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton entrusted her email server to an IT firm that was not cleared to handle classified materials, according to the chief spokesman for the Defense Security Service.... The DSS is an arm of the Defense Department and is the only federal agency authorized to approve private sector company access to sensitive or confidential material.... The DSS provides clearances to 30 federal departments and agencies, including the State Department....”

Also in Richard Pollock’s article in the Daily Caller was this: “.... Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, told the DCNF that the Platte River involvement ‘raises serious questions’ about the security surrounding Secretary Clinton’s server over the last two years.... ‘The revelation that Secretary Clinton used a private company, Platte River Networks, to maintain her personal server raises questions about what steps the company took to preserve and secure sensitive information in Secretary Clinton’s email,’ Johnson said....”

About Me

I formerly have commented on various political blogs concerning Republican politics. Although the focus of my political commentary has been on the Brooklyn GOP and other aspects of politics in Brooklyn, I have also posted commentary about national matters.
If you wish to contact Galewyn Massey directly, please, Email to galewynmasban@gmail.com